The University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point has been awarded a
$1.8 million federal grant, which went
into effect on Oct. 1.

This grant goes towards
improving academic services in order
to help more students succeed.

The Strengthening Academic
Success: More Graduates in Wisconsin
program will be funded by the Title
III grant from the U.S. Department
of Education, which is a part of the
federal No Child Left Behind Act of
2001.

It is a five-year grant that will
help at-risk students stay in school
and complete their degrees.

“This grant will help us to
strengthen and improve instructional
effectiveness and efficiencies in
retaining and graduating well-
prepared, workforce-ready students,”
said Chancellor Bernie Patterson. “It​is one of several ways our faculty and
staff are helping students succeed,
and to graduate in four years.”

The goal of the proposal is to
increase retention of first-to-second-
year students by 0.5 percent for each
of the five years the grant will last.

Another goal is to improve the
four-year graduation rate by 3 percent
by the program’s final year.

“As traditional funding sources
have eroded, UWSP has had to turn
to alternative sources for funding
critical services,” said Kathy Davis,
the Executive Director of Academic
Success. “We currently retain about
82 percent of students from their
first to second year, which exceeds
state and national averages, but we
want to find methods to increase our
retention rate.”

The Title III grant will include
tutoring, academic advising and
career counselling.

It will also fund 32 student
positions for peer tutoring and peer advising mentors.

“The grant is part of a Strengthening Institutions Program,
which helps higher education
programs expand their capacity to
serve at-risk students by providing
funds to improve and strengthen
academic quality, institutional
management, and fiscal stability,”
Davis said.

The grant is trying to eliminate
risk factors that can create obstacles
in education, such as low income, low
ACT scores, academic probation and
first generation students attending
college.

“There are many contributors to
retention, but there is clear evidence
that low-income, first generation,
students with low ACT scores and
students on academic probation can
be helped to succeed through targeted
academic services,” Davis said.

The funding will not only allow
at-risk students to receive academic
services to make a difference in their academic success, but it will also help
expand some of the trial programs
that tutoring and advising have been
experimenting with.

“Services will be enhanced
or developed to meet student’s
unique needs and direct students
to appropriate services to support
increased success in their college
career,” Davis said.

Each program will involve
student mentors and advisors who
will work directly with the students.

This program will enhance the
Supplemental Instruction program,
which places student mentors in
at-risk courses allowing them to
better understand the needs of their
students. They also offer discussion
groups and targeted tutoring.

“These new opportunities are
available to our students only because
a small team of extremely dedicated
staff members were determined to
make a difference, and they have, to
a tune of $1.8 million,” Patterson said.